In Hartford, Connecticut, the state’s Supreme Court has ruled to uphold the murder conviction of Richard Dabate, despite acknowledging certain “improprieties” by the prosecutor. Dabate was convicted of murdering his wife, Connie Dabate, a case notable for the way her Fitbit data contradicted his statements to law enforcement. The court found in a 6-0 decision that the trial was fair despite the prosecutor’s four missteps, which they described as “troubling,” including an inappropriate reference to one of the state’s most infamous crimes during Dabate’s cross-examination.
Dabate, aged 48, was found guilty of the 2015 murder of his wife at their home in Ellington, with their two young sons at school during the incident. He received a 65-year prison sentence. Prosecutors alleged that Dabate wanted his wife dead partly due to his extramarital affair with another woman, who was pregnant at the time of the murder and later bore his child. Authorities said Dabate staged the crime scene, tying himself loosely with zip ties and injuring himself with a box cutter, before claiming an unknown intruder had killed his wife and attacked him.
State police reported that Dabate’s timeline of the event was contradicted by the data from his wife’s Fitbit, which showed she was active for about an hour after Dabate claimed she was shot. Dabate, who testified in his defense, insisted on his innocence, asserting that a masked man resembling Vin Diesel was responsible for the murder. Part of Dabate’s appeal challenged the Fitbit evidence’s reliability and the trial judge’s decision to allow it, but the Supreme Court upheld its admissibility and usage.
Dabate also accused Tolland State’s Attorney Matthew Gedansky of several acts of misconduct, such as referencing a 2007 infamous home invasion in Cheshire during cross-examination. In that harrowing event, intruders murdered a woman and her two young daughters after holding them captive for hours, leaving only the husband alive following a severe assault. Gedansky’s comparison of Dabate’s case to this home invasion—asking if Dabate intended to create a “little mini-Cheshire scene”—was deemed improperly inflammatory. The Supreme Court noted Gedansky’s violation of the judge’s directive to rephrase his question after an objection from Dabate’s counsel.
Justice Joan Alexander stated in the opinion that the prosecutor’s comparison to the infamous crime was needlessly provocative. Gedansky did not respond to requests for comment on Monday. Dabate’s attorney, Trent LaLima, expressed disappointment with the ruling, highlighting the strong case for a new trial they presented. “We are evaluating the best next steps for Rick, who has steadfastly maintained his innocence for nearly a decade,” LaLima mentioned.
The court also cited several other instances of Gedansky’s improper conduct during the trial, including insinuating that the jury would have to lack common sense or diligence to accept the defense’s narrative of the case. The decision criticized these actions strongly and unequivocally, urging future prosecutors to heed this message seriously. However, the justices emphasized that the prosecution’s evidence was robust, and the prosecutor’s errors did not undermine the extensive testimony from 130 witnesses and the 600 exhibits presented over the trial’s five weeks.
